Another third party effort that will fail

We’re not referring to the Libertarian or Constitution Parties in our title. The third party we’re talking about here is that which the General Assembly Republicans have been working on forming going on four years now.

what else can you call what those 80, uh, actually, now it’s 74 state house and state senate Republicans are up to except working on a new party. Forget the “Republican” label they’ve run under. Forget that pesky Illinois GOP Platform.

The men and women who have been serving us in Springfield have had four years to set out an agenda that’s different from that of the Democrats. If you’ve seen that agenda, please send it to us and set us straight.

After all, it’s been quite clear for quite a while that the fiscal state of the state isn’t good. We know the story. The state has too much debt. Its taxpayer-funded pension system is way too generous. And there’s a long list of tax-eating groups that are clamoring for ever more tax dollars they don’t need even as our General Assembly is filled with individuals that lack the courage to say “no.”

Set aside for a moment the so-called “social issues” – Illinois rank-and-file Republican by now should’ve seen or heard some kind of Republican plan to solve the fiscal mess created by a bi-partisan group of Democrats and Un-conservative Republicans.

Since they haven’t, we can only assume that Republican General Assembly members have in mind to create a new party – one that calls itself Republican but in reality ignores Republican governing principles.

It won’t work. You can’t win public support for a course that doesn’t exist. There are no “moderate” solutions to this liberal fiscal mess. Such a “new course” exists only in the minds of those Republican General Assembly members who wish it to be so.

They don’t realize that there is no demand for a political party that has as its goal to spend-a-lot-but-maybe-a-little-less-than-the-Democrats. They don’t realize they are destined for permanent and pathetic minority status. They fantasize about the Democrats screwing things up so bad that eventually voters will turn to the faux-Republicans. What they can’t see is that voters will find Lisa Madigan as a more credible reformer than anything they can pretend to be.

While there is no need for their kind of third party in Illinois there is a need for a second party – a Grand Old Party filled with leaders who realize that the government that governs best governs least.

We will continue to track the words and actions of those who happened to get elected to the Illinois General Assembly as Republicans. We will highlight any who present solutions based on platform principles.

As for the “Republican third partiers” – we wish them Godspeed and encourage them to go ahead follow their dream. We only ask that they first make it official by forming an actual third party and writing a “new course” platform. It would be the honest thing to do.

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